:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/33144375/20131221_ter_al2_432.0.jpg)
The college football season is still just over three months away from kicking off, and bowl season is an even longer seven months. Those things do not keep pundits from making extremely early predictions, and CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm has released his bowl and playoff projections.
The Mountain West is tied to six bowl games: Las Vegas, New Mexico, Hawaii, New Orleans, Poinsettia and Idaho Bowl. Palm has seven Mountain West has seven teams in a bowl game and that seventh team is not the automatic bid from the group of five conferences, that spot belongs to Cincinnati.
Here are the bowl projections via Palm:
| Bowl | Date | Location | Matchup | Prediction |
| Heart of Dallas | Dec. 26 | Dallas, Texas | Big Ten/Big 12 vs. C-USA | San Diego State* vs. Marshall |
| Hawaii | Dec. 24 | Honolulu, Hawaii | Mountain West vs. C-USA | Fresno State vs. North Texas |
| Poinsettia | Dec. 24 | San Diego, Calif. | Mountain West vs. Navy | Colorado State vs. Navy |
| New Mexico | Dec. 20 | Albuquerque, N.M. | Mountain West vs. C-USA | Utah State vs. Rice |
| Royal Purple | Dec. 20 | Las Vegas, Nev. | Mountain West No. 1 vs. Pac-12 | Boise State vs. Arizona State |
| Idaho Potato | Dec. 20 | Boise, Idaho | Mountain West vs. MAC | Air Force vs. Toledo |
| New Orleans | TBA | New Orleans, La. | Sun Belt vs. Mountain West | Arkansas State vs. Wyoming |
Besides the obvious item that the Mountain West champion is not in a big money bowl game, seeing Wyoming, Coloraod State and Air Force in a bowl game is very surprising. Air Force was just awful last year and won zero Mountain West games and of their two wins one was against a FCS team. Plus, the Falcons had a quarterback issue last year and that has yet to be completely settled after spring camp.
Colorado State lost Kapri Bibbs, most of their offensive line and Shaq Barrett at linebacker so it is hard to see them getting to a bowl game. Then there is Wyoming who has a new head coach in Craig Bohl and they lost their best quarterback, wide receiver and defensive back, so seeing them in a bowl game is a stretch.
These are very extremely bowl prediction and odds are will change very soon.